Inside Higher Ed: Study Finds that Students with High Hopes Get Better Grades

By Helen Edelman, manager, Exchange

December 11, 2012

It doesn’t seem surprising that someone who can set goals, visualize paths to achieve them, and summon the motivation to start down those paths would be more likely to succeed than someone who can’t do those things. But measuring the potential effect of those characteristics – which together compose the characteristic of “hope” – is starting to become clearer. A growing (but still small) body of research is finding that students with high levels of hope get better grades and graduate at higher rates than those with lower levels, and that the presence of hope in a student is a better predictor of grades and class ranking than standardized test scores.